We begin today's roundup with
The New York Times explaining how yesterday's Benghazi hearing only served to embarrass Republicans:
The pointless grilling of Mrs. Clinton, who fielded a barrage of questions that have long been answered and settled, served only to embarrass the Republican lawmakers who have spent millions of dollars on a political crusade. In recent days, some prominent Republicans have even admitted as much.
If there was any notion that the Select Committee on Benghazi might be on to something, it was quickly dispelled. In a flailing performance, the committee’s chairman, Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, made it evident that he and his colleagues have squandered more than $4.6 million and countless hours poring over State Department records and Mrs. Clinton’s email. They produced no damning evidence, elicited no confessions and didn’t succeed in getting an angry reaction from Mrs. Clinton.
From
The Economist:
The ten-hour grilling Hillary Clinton was subjected to in Congress on October 22nd was, said her Republican interrogators, necessary to uncover the truth of how and why those four Americans died. But this was nonsense. The Benghazi select committee, launched by the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, has spent 17 months and, by a conservative reckoning, $4.5m shining little more light on those questions than seven previous enquiries. And indeed, the truth of the matter does not seem terribly elusive.
Anticipated by Washington insiders for weeks as a possible tank-trap for her presidential campaign, the interrogation gave Mrs Clinton’s enemies little encouragement and her supporters a good bit to cheer. Much of the questioning from the Republican committee members, which grew more vituperative as the hours ticked by, was ill-focused, irrelevant or asinine.
Sam Frizell at TIME:
Widespread scrutiny of the Benghazi Committee has increased in recent weeks since House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy claimed that the members successfully hurt Clinton’s poll numbers. A second Republican congressman, Rep. Richard Hanna, said the committee was “designed to go after people and an individual, Hillary Clinton.”
With Gowdy’s committee under fire for its motives, he and the Republican majority appeared chastened during the hearing, mostly refraining from slamming Clinton. But after 11 hours, they appeared unable to point to specific gains from the day.
After the hearing, Gowdy was asked what new insights lawmakers gleaned from Clinton’s testimony. “I don’t know if she testified that much differently today than she has previous times she testified,” he said.
More analysis below the fold...
Rick Klein at ABC News:
The comparative anticlimax of Clinton’s performance on Capitol Hill could assuage nervous Democrats about her strength as a candidate. She remains the overwhelming frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, particularly after Biden’s decision.
The biggest takeaway for many voters is likely to be apathy. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found a clear majority of voters disapproving of Clinton’s handling of Benghazi, but also believing Republicans are mainly out to harm her politically.
Chris Cillizza says Clinton succeeded in keeping a calm demeanor in the face of Republican attacks:
Time after time, she refused to be goaded to anger by pointed questions by Republican members of the committee, deflecting the queries with either humor or unfamiliarity. (I don't know those people, I didn't see that document etc.)
At the same time, Clinton was far from deferential when she disagreed. Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo (R), for example, pushed Clinton to explain why so many security requests regarding Benghazi had been made but not fulfilled. “I have to respectfully disagree,” Clinton said. “Many security requests were fulfilled.”
And so it went. Republicans doing everything they could to force Clinton into an admission that her timelines or her assumptions were wrong, Democrats allowing Clinton time to clean up any mistakes or misstatements she made while bashing their GOP colleagues for the partisan nature of the hearing.
Jamelle Bouie at Slate:
You don’t have to like Clinton to see that this is a coup for her campaign. Not only has she bolstered her image as a smart, competent policymaker, but she’s even defused her email controversy—or come close to it—by talking about the issue in a calm, nonadversarial way. Meanwhile, by the fifth hour, committee members like Roskam were hitting Clinton for having a skilled press team.
When this began, conventional wisdom was that Hillary had to survive the scrutiny. That at best, this would be a wash. Toward the end, however, that wisdom changed. “Unless something happens,” wrote conservative columnist Matt Lewis on Twitter, “it’s starting to look like Hillary Clinton won’t merely survive this hearing—she will have come out on top.”
Jonathan Allen at Vox:
Republicans will kick themselves for dragging Hillary Clinton before the House Benghazi committee Thursday.
It was a defining moment for Clinton's presidential aspirations. She handled the GOP’s questions with aplomb and without the patina of partisanship that has characterized the committee since its conception. That would have been bad enough for the Republicans’ hopes of seizing the White House in 2017. But she did much more than that. She answered questions that Republicans have been hanging out there in hopes of sowing doubts among voters.